Interesting Times

The march celebrating sixtieth anniversary of the 1946 Black Mineworkers’ strike was not covered by the South African or foreign press. The occasion was marked by the ANC’s Magazine of political discussion, Umrabulo (No.26). Click here to go direct to their article on the strike. See the link below for COSATU’s press release following the march. Are the cases of Ephraim Seloga and Johannes Malatjie, fought to a finish with the help of their COSATU-affiliated union, NUMSA, extraordinary, or typical? Shocking is at least one word that is appropriate, anyway. See the linked NUMSA release, below. COSATU hits back hard against the flurry of anonymous scuttlebutt and skinder in the bourgeois print media, aimed at character assassination and the promotion of their own preferred candidates prior to the COSATU 9th Congress, due to be held from 18th to 21st September. Vusi Pikoli is the man who inherited the mess left by disgraced former Scorpion-in-Chief Bulelani Ngcuka. Why Pikoli did not immediately dump Ngcuka’s useless and self-defeating campaign against Jacob Zuma is yet to be revealed. If he carries on with it he may end up as the second (after Ngcuka) Head Scorpion to be squashed in consequence of this tainted and bogus legal quagmire. To paraphrase Uri Avnery (on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon), the Scorpions are conquering Jacob Zuma the way flies conquer fly-paper. For their own good the best advice is the same for the Scorpions as for the Israelis: Quit while you still survive, and before you are squashed, stuck and "Doomed". Document of the day has to be the COSATU office-bearer’s rebuttal of the Sunday’s clumsy attempts at interference from the Empire Road offices of the City Press. Click on these links: COSATU, A March to remember in 1946 (240 words) NUMSA, Forklift drivers six-year fight pays off (356 words) COSATU Pre-Congress discussions (270 words) COSATU responds to Pikoli (498 words) COSATU statement on City Press allegations (548 words)